IIT-Bombay breaks into world's top 200 university rankings; IIT-Delhi emerges top Indian institution

India’s education system has been often found wanting compared to its global peers, but the recent development offers an encouraging sign, at least, for some of the country’s top-rung universities. Making it to the world’s top 200 educational universities, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Bombay has been ranked 179 in the latest edition of the ‘Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings’. It improved its ranking by 40 position – was ranked 219 last year, The Indian Express report said. IIT-Bombay, thus, joins IIT-Delhi and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, in this group. This is for the first time that three universities from India are ranked among top 200 universities in the world in a single year. [caption id=“attachment_3421594” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. News18[/caption] Of the three, IIT-Delhi emerged as the top ranking Indian institution in the world, improving its ranking to 172 from 185 last year. It replaced IISc, Bengaluru, which fell over 30 places from 152 to 190. In fact, IISc has been losing its ranking for the second straight year. Despite ceding its position over the past two years, IISc is still rated the sixth best institution in the world in terms of QS’s ‘citations per faculty’ metric. “This metric measures the research intensiveness and research impact of a university by dividing the number of citations that a university’s research acquires by the number of faculty members at that university. QS notes that IISc’s research papers were cited nearly 82,000 times over the five-year period QS used for this metric,” the IE reports states citing the QS press release. Leading the table, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the rankings for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Stanford University and Harvard University, California Institute of Technology and University of Cambridge, the UK-based ranking agency QS said. “This year’s results indicate that India is home to three of the world’s top 200 universities for the first time since QS’s inaugural rankings of 2004. Furthermore, IIT Delhi replaces IISc Bangalore as India’s highest-ranked university for the first time since both universities were ranked together,” Mint report said citing the email by QS. Among the world’s 959 top universities, 20 Indian institutions featured in the list this year, six more than last year. The six new entrants were Jadavpur University (ranked in the 601-650 band), University of Hyderabad (601-650), Anna University (651-700), Manipal University (701-750), Aligarh Muslim University (800-1000) and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (800-1000), IE report added. Entering the top 500 group, Delhi University moved up from its position to the 481-490 category over 501-550 category. Among others, IIT-Kharagpur’s ranking came in at 308 from 313, IIT Kanpur rose to 293 from 302 rank last year and IIT-Guwahati moved from 481-490 band to 501-550 band, the report said. “However, there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially in the employers reputation indicator, suggesting that a closer collaboration between the corporate world and the leading universities is essential. India is also less competitive than other countries in the international students and faculty indicators, which makes perfect sense giving the huge internal demand for higher education,” Mint report said quoting Ben Sowter, research director at QS.